


These old desks come with old chains

by YourFadedGlory (HisNameWasAce)



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Police, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-04
Updated: 2014-07-03
Packaged: 2018-02-07 09:22:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1893750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HisNameWasAce/pseuds/YourFadedGlory
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If you follow Centre Avenue far enough you'll find a police station with a golden no.2 gleaming proud by the front door.</p>
            </blockquote>





	These old desks come with old chains

**Author's Note:**

> All mistakes are my own as they always are. 
> 
> Some ages have been altered to agree with the story line.

Pittsburgh was disgusting.

Claude could feel sweat beading down between his shoulders and settling at the small of his back, where the black cotton of his uniform was steadily beginning to adhere to his skin. Heat radiated off the pavement, the stagnate summer air undisturbed by even the slightest breeze, and thick with the wretched stench of cigarette smoke and burning gasoline.

It was his second week out doing foot patrol, some half pint blonde from California that was hardly old enough to be on the force at all trailing after him. While the kid had a few tolerable moments -most of which involved tripping up street scum with skateboards- his eating habits were horrifying and his incessant chatter about the latest and greatest superhero movie was slowly eating away at Claude’s already limited sanity.

Captain Lemieux had promised him it was a temporary fix, more a babysitting job than anything. His real partner was out at some sort of training conference or some shit, and thus he was saddled with the partnerless rookie, all big blue eyes and mindless babbling.

“He just launched the cruiser right at him...I wonder if insurance will cover that, a superhero using your car for the greater good... I mean even if they didn’t it’d be such a cool story to tell. You wrecked your car offroading? Well my car was used to defeat Electro.” Crumbs fell off Beau’s lips as he sucked down his hotdog, slurping through his straw, and rambling intermittently between the two.

Claude was only half listening, glancing around the bustling street as they went about their route, chiming in the occasional grunt of acknowledgement whenever the kid paused expectantly for his input.

They were about four blocks from the end of their rout, getting ready to double back when the front door of a corner store banged open and a hooded man sprinted out into the street. The store owner wasn’t far behind, a balding old man that waddled more than he walked, a bright streak of scarlet dripping down the side of his face. Gesturing manically he shouted down the street, his voice pitched high in panic. “Officer, officer stop him!”

Groaning internally at his own misfortune, Claude broke into a sprint, dodging cars and locking his eyes onto the flapping fabric of the assailants battered jacket. Beau was hot on his heels, excitedly barking the details of their foot pursuit into his radio, and sounding way too giddy about having to chase some low life asshole through the sweltering city heat.

The son-of-a-bitch was fast too, slipping through throngs of shoppers and street vendors before disappearing around a corner and out of their direct line of sight.

Claude kept pounding pavement though, sucking in one soupy lungful of air after another as he pushed his legs to go faster and stride longer. It’d been a while since he’d actually had to chase anyone on foot and the throbbing ache in his side was slowing him down considerably, enough so that Beau was quickly overtaking him and bounding into the lead. Claude couldn’t let that happen, he was only a few years older than Caelan, babyfaced and painfully eager. Kids like that, they didn’t think beyond the adrenalin, they didn’t have the headspace to wonder if they were racing around the corner only to be shot or stabbed.

Forcibly breathing through the pain, Claude threw himself forward a few strides, just enough to put himself between the doe eyed blonde and their perp as they swung the corner. As his arm shifted back it was one smooth motion to draw his gun from it’s holster, cock his elbows, and drop into stance with his knees slightly bent and ready to throw his weight in any direction.

“Pittsburgh PD, freeze!”

 

**\-----**

His voice boomed down the street, heads swiveling in his direction.

A pair of utterly unimpressed hazel eyes met Claude’s and pinned him in place, dark brown curls falling across the other man’s forehead. Dressed for a jog in a black t-shirt and some hideously yellow basketball shorts, he was literally _sitting_ on the perp, his abnormally large ass forcing him to the sizzling concrete.

For a tense second Claude stayed frozen like that, weapon drawn and pointed squarely at a small expanse of flesh between those hazel eyes. Then, just like that, their impromptu staredown came to a sudden end as Beau darted past him and Claude lowered his gun instinctively to keep his partner out of the line of fire.

“Sidney!” It was a cry of gleeful recognition and Claude watched with mild curiosity as Beau flung himself at the brunette, enveloping him in a bear hug and only handcuffing the perp as an after thought. The blonde was chattering a mile a minute, throwing in Miranda Rights somewhere amidst vivid recountings of what had to be more than two weeks worth of crazy adventures.

Hazel Eyes, or rather _Sidney_ , seemed to take it all in stride, offering Beau an indulgent smile and quick, polite nods of interest as he rambled.

Claude stood off to the side, watching as the kid caught up with his buddy, only ambling over when a cruiser finally managed to make its way down. Beau dutifully tucked their perp into the back seat, giving the car roof a few affectionate pats to send it off. Once the cruiser disappeared around the corner he spun back around, mouth agape and ready to start spouting stories again, but Claude cut him off by pointedly clearing his throat and setting a firm hand on the kid’s shoulder.

Hazel Eyes tracked the gesture with open hostility, his body tensing in a way that radiated danger to Claude, like a wire wound so tight that when it snapped it was going to shred everything in its path. He wasn’t about to back down though, not from some weirdo in hideous shorts.

“Bennett, why don’t you go radio dispatch? Tell em’ we’re headed back out to finish our patrol.” Claude suggested, nudging the rookie back in the direction from which they’d come. He seemed to deflate a little at the prospect of leaving his friend, but did as he was told, edging over a few feet and fiddling with his radio until it came to life with a burst of static.

Satisfied that the kid was out of earshot, Claude turned back to the other man and was met with the same unimpressed glower from before. “I know it’s probably exciting, hearing your buddy’s stories about life on the beat, but our work isn’t just some kind of adrenaline high. These assholes are dangerous, and while I appreciate your help, you really should leave the police work to the guys with a badge and gun.” He warned, his tone just the slightest bit chiding.

Hazel Eyes shot him a small, innocent smile in response. But there was a smugness in his tone, an underlying bite of arrogance when he quipped a quick, _'of course officer,’_ that left Claude feeling like the butt end of a joke that the rest of the world was in on.

”Beau.” The blonde bounced over at the man’s call like an over eager pup to it’s owner, nearly shaking out of his skin with excitement. Claude watched the two exchange goodbyes that involved hair ruffling and a quick conversation that was pitched to low for him to hear. Beau came away looking slightly puzzled, waving as Hazel Eyes popped his earphones back in and went jogging down the street in all his yellow glory.

“Your friend is a piece of work Bennett.” Claude muttered with a shake of his head, starting the trek back up to their usual route.

“Oh Sid’s great.” The kid insisted, scrambling to catch up. He spent the last thirty minutes of their shift babbling about Sidney _this_ and Sidney _that._

 

**\-----**

Claude was ready to put his head through a wall by the time they got back to the station, which seemed oddly empty considering they’d actually managed to arrive on time for the shift change.

“Where is everyone?”

“Probably upstairs.” Beau crowed, bounding toward the elevator and jabbing at the button incessantly. While being confined in a rickety, metal box with the kid seemed less than ideal, Claude was more than a little desperate to fill out his reports and head home to Danny.

A nice, long shower sounded fantastic. With time on his side he could fire up the grill and maybe surprise the boys with some steaks. Because of all his culinary prowess he might even be able to coax a quick handjob out of Danny before they called it a night.

“Are you listening to me?”

Claude snapped out of his stupor, whipping around to face Beau, who was wearing his best impression of grumpy cat. Arms crossed over his chest, blue eyes narrowed in annoyance, the kid stared him down like a champ. It gave Claude an inkling of hope that maybe he wasn’t half bad in the interrogation room.

“Sorry, what?”

Heaving an exasperated sigh, arms waving dramatically over his head, Beau gestured to their warped reflections in the battered, stainless steel doors. “I _said_ , that this is a big deal. He’s been off the force for a few months and the whole station is real glad to see him back on the job, so don’t get all butt hurt now that you’re not the hot gossip topic.” He repeated, words slow and pointed, as if he wasn’t talking to man, but rather a particularly dense circus animal.

“Wait, who’re we talking about?” Claude asked, brow furrowed in confusion.

The doors dinged open and a wave of excited chatter drowned out Beau’s answer. It seemed like the entire department had converged on one floor, or more specifically, one desk.

 

**\-----**

Fleury and Letang, Neal and Martin, Kunitz and Orpik, Bortuzzo and Vokoun, and a lot of other guys that he couldn’t put a name to were hovering around a desk, that as far as Claude remembered, had been vacant that morning. Even the captain was out and about, leaning casually against the frame of his office door, laughing and chattering with rest of them.

Beau had no reservations about throwing himself into the fray, essentially leaping into Bortuzzo, who seemed entirely unphased by the nearly two hundred pounds of blonde that landed square in his lap. It was a trend that Claude had noticed early on. The tactility of the Pittsburgh P.D.’s Zone 2 force, it was off the charts. All of the guys seemed to live in each other’s pockets, a sense of camaraderie that Claude had only ever seen rivaled while on a training trip to Chicago.

He fit into it all like a Flyers jersey at a home game in the Consol Energy Center.

So not at all.

Which is why he knew trying to sneak his way past the howling horde, hoping he could get his paperwork done and make a run for domestic bliss unnoticed, was rather pointless.

Two steps was as far as he managed before Lemieux appeared at his side and steered him toward the group. Through the gaggle of men, a piercing hazel gaze met Claude’s, and he suddenly understood the unspoken joke he’d felt hanging over him all afternoon.

Hazel Eyes McFugly Shorts was sitting in the heart of the chaos, a badge hanging from a chain strung around his neck. He was still dressed in his jogging gear, yellow shorts and all, his hands shoved into their pockets.

“Claude this is-”

“Sidney.” The ginger finished, cutting off Mario’s attempted introduction.

“We met this afternoon, he sat on my robber.” He explained, feeling like a fool. While the rest of the guys burst into laughter, chirping the brunnette about his ample ass muscle, Mario was glancing between them impassively.

“Well it’s good you two have met, you'll be seeing a lot more of each other considering you’ve been paired together.” Silence fell thick over the previously raucous bunch, the tension nearly palpable as Claude stared down his new partner. As if he sensed the imminent objection to the announcement, Lemieux leveled them all with a sharp warning glance.

“You start patrol together tomorrow, bright and early on the first shift.”

While he wasn’t exactly keen on the idea, so much so that he’d rather be walking foot patrol with Beau, Claude still knew an order when he heard one. Lemieux sure as hell wasn’t handing out friendly suggestions.

 

**\-----**

Uttering a quiet “yes sir,” Claude took the nod he got in return as dismissal. Slinking away to his desk, rickety and rusty, pushed into the far back corner, next to the cracked window that seemed to leach away the minimal air conditioning that managed to reached his little niche of existence.

Collapsing into his desk chair, he watched from the corner of his eye as the group slowly disbanded to their respective desks, Sidney trailing after Lemieux into the Captain’s office. Muttering darkly under his breath, Claude set to work on his reports and tried to ignore how his new partner’s _everything_ seemed to chafe him the wrong way. From his painfully obnoxious shorts and his serial killer stare, to the way everyone seemed to fall over themselves to be within half a foot of his presence, it all drove him nuts.

“Claude.”

It was the singsonged tone of voice that alerted him to Beau’s presence, and he had to bite back on the urge to groan in annoyance. When he glanced up, he was glad he did, the kid was was hovering at the edge of his desk and clutching something behind his back. Claude could see Bortuzzo seated a few desks over and glowering him into submission behind the blonde’s back.

“What’s up Bennett?” He asked, watching a grin pull across the other’s lips.

“Well you were my first partner, and your desk is kind of depressing.” Beau motioned across the blatantly empty surface. Claude had been hesitant to put up pictures of Danny and the boys, unsure of how Pittsburgh was going to take to his less than conventional family. He had a lamp that flickered whenever something else was plugged in, and a chipped novelty cup full of pens and pencils. It was admittedly bare in comparison to his neighbors’ wildly cluttered work spaces.

Claude expected the kid to pull out some sort of Penguins paraphernalia, it seemed to be plentiful around the station. Instead he was handed a ball of newspaper that was held together by a flimsy piece of twine.

“Go on,” Beau grinned eagerly, nearly bouncing on the balls of his feet.

Fumbling with large, calloused hands, Claude managed to undo the bit of string and peel back the six layers of newspaper and scotch tape. Underneath the impromptu wrapping paper was the Philadelphia skyline, staring up at him from a little glass[ paperweight](http://images.cdn.bigcartel.com/bigcartel/product_images/28247246/max_h-1000+max_w-1000/skyline.jpg).

He gawked at it for a moment, touched that Beau went to the trouble of finding him a little piece of the home he’d left behind. They’d only been partnered for a week and a half, and the kid had made it a personal mission to christen his hunk of junk desk.

”Thanks Beau, it was fun kid.”

Claude wadded up the paper and chucked it in the nearby waste basket, setting the paperweight on the corner, next to his novelty coffee cup full of pens.

The kid absolutely beamed in response, looking obscenely pleased with himself. Even Bortuzzo looked to be put at ease, swiveling around in his chair and going back to his own paperwork with a smug little smile.

Before he could stop himself, a bit of nagging curiosity that had been nipping at his heels got the best of him. As the blonde turned to go, Claude stopped him with a quick flick of his hand. “Who was last settled with Sidney?” He asked, wishing almost instantly that he hadn’t.

Beau’s entire face fell, lips pressed into a grim line, baby blues flickering uncertainly toward the rest of the guys.Claude noted how each of them stiffened, pens stopped moving and chairs stopped creaking. It was an oppressive silence, one that needed no explanation.

Claude knew, he knew that pinched look of hurt that settled on their faces and the haunted emptiness that glazed over their eyes.

He was sitting in a dead man’s chair.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed my madness.
> 
> Kudos and comments are always appreciated :)


End file.
